Rap commodification puts Black creators attempting to resist the structure back in the hands of the white capitalist hegemon
Tsang 20 [Tate Tsang is a student at Oxford College receiving a PhD in music studies who published an article with the jfa; the jfa (justice for all) Human Rights Journal is an award-nominated online and print storytelling publication focused on amplifying under-platformed human rights issues through articles, photography, poetry and art, 7/23/20, “The commodification of hip-hop culture and rap music”, https://www.thejfa.com/read/the-commodification-of-hip-hop-culture-and-rap-music, accessed 7/20/24]staghi
The commodification of hip-hop culture is a fundamental issue as it has led to a paradox of rap attempting to destabilise dominant hegemonic paradigms, while equally being dependent on the hegemonic frameworks of popular culture and capitalist production. To a great extent, this dependency has placed the voice of those rendered mute in U.S society back into the hands of white capitalist structures. The racial infrastructure within the music industry may therefore be predominantly responsible for the stagnancy in the social progression of rap music. There is a vicious cycle of contradiction surrounding hip-hop’s image, subsequently damaging hip-hop culture as a form of liberation: the image of abuse of narcotics, misogyny and profanity has been strategically projected by the mainstream media as a tactic to profit corporate America. These are the very features that gain the most disapproval toward hip-hop as a culture, yet ironically has been enhanced by commercialism and exploits the image of the criminalised black youth to become a commodity of popular culture.